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<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Ted wrote:</FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">"I mentioned the Downing Street memo and provided a web link to information about it in a V2020 post yesterday subject headed "Republicans Jump From Sinking Ship."<BR><BR><A href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0517/dailyUpdate.html">http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0517/dailyUpdate.html</A><BR><BR>Your post today seemed to imply the V2020 list was not talking about the Downing Street memo, and I guess you are correct, except for little ol'me."</FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Sorry, Ted. My email is set up not by date and time but alphabetically by author, so I saw Dave Budge's post before I read Ted Moffett's. And, as is my wont, I jumped the gun. I posted the Downing Street memo thing before I read your "Republicans Jump From Sinking Ship."</FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Ted continues: <BR><BR>"The Downing Street memo is good evidence of intent to manipulate facts to justify an invasion of Iraq that was hard to justify, but the claims of 'yellow cake' obtained by Iraq from Niger for nuclear weapons was a fraudulent 'fact' mentioned by President Bush in a State of the Union address at a time when it was known by those who should know that this was a bogus claim."</FONT></FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10">Vice President Cheney knew that the claim was fraudulent. Cheney ordered the investigation into the Niger claim, and he personally received the report that the claim was false. I think it stretches credulity to believe that he did not pass this information on to Bush prior to the State of the Union address -- that being the case, if the yellow cake claim wasn't a "lie," then what was it? It's not a lie by omission; it's a lie by submission.</DIV>
<DIV><BR>Ted again:</DIV>
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<DIV>"I think the only credible argument that saves Bush from being either severely incompetent and/or an outright liar regarding the 'yellow cake' claim was that he was deliberately misled by his own intelligence operatives to make this claim in a State of the Union address. Info on 'yellow cake' statement in Bush's State of the Union address:<BR><BR><A href="http://www.time.com/time/columnist/karon/article/0,9565,463779,00.html">http://www.time.com/time/columnist/karon/article/0,9565,463779,00.html</A><BR><BR>Still, should we assume the President of the United States should do fact checking of his own to vet a State of the Union address for accuracy?"</DIV>
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<DIV>I'm not willing to excuse Bush by assuming that he was mislead. He made it clear to his underlings that the only intelligence he wanted was intelligence supported his case for war. This fact (or, rather, bias) has been documented over and over and over again. We fail our country and we fail ourselves when we make excuses for a President of the United States as if he were a particularly dim-witted sixth-grader. (Not that you're doing that, Ted.) My point is that if Bush were Richard Nixon -- a man universally acknowledged to be smart if smarmy -- then we wouldn't be looking for reasons why the President might not have been "in the loop." We'd be drawing up the articles of impeachment. </DIV>
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<DIV>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment</DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.auntie-establishment.com">www.auntie-establishment.com</A></DIV>
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<DIV>PS: Then again, maybe not. If only Bush had a semen-stained blue dress . . . <BR><BR><BR></DIV></FONT></FONT></FONT></BODY></HTML>